Martin Schulz Quotes

I think if you touch ordinary people, they're simply ordinary people, the way they've always been. They work hard, they don't have really as much as they should.

I understand the pain of working-class Americans because I have experienced the pain.

There are far too many people who get up early in the morning, and work hard, who cannot make ends meet.

Well, maybe it was just that I wasn't going to like anybody because I had to work and I had to explain to my teachers why I wasn't keeping up. I'd fall asleep and things in class and they'd lecture me about the reality of their classroom. I said, 'You want to see my reality?' I opened up my backpack to where you usually keep your pencils. That's where I kept my bills... electric bills, rent... That was my reality.

If you're a single mother with two children, which is the toughest job in America as far as I'm concerned, and you're working hard to put food on your family.

For far too many people in the world, the vicious cycle of financial deprivation also feeds into the vicious cycle of sleep deprivation. If you're working two or three jobs and struggling to make ends meet, "get more sleep" is probably not going to be near the top of your priorities list.

Show me one couple unhappy merely on account of their limited circumstances, and I will show you ten who are wretched from other causes.

Middle income families with children are Australia’s new poor

My mother saved our home with a minimum wage job. But in the 1960s, a minimum wage job would support a family of three above the poverty line. Not today. Not even close. I understood right then that people can work hard, they can play by the rules, and they can still take a hard smack.

Put yourself in the position of a person, sort of an ordinary American, "I'm a hard-working, god-fearing Christian. I take care of my family, I go to church, I, you know, do everything 'right'. And I'm getting shafted. For the last thirty years, my income has stagnated, my working hours are going up, my benefits are going down. My wife has to work two [jobs] to, you know, put food on the table. The children, God, there's no care for the children, the schools are rotten, and so on. What did I do wrong? I did everything you're supposed to do, but something's going wrong to me.

My mother - it's not one of those waxing-poetic kind of things - she literally worked two or three jobs most of her life. So I personally experienced that, even though I had these great friends and associations who had unlimited amounts of money. That juxtaposition was an interesting one.

I didn't have parents I could take a million dollars from. We were a lower-class family.

I grew up on a council estate in south London; my dad was a bus driver and my mum sewed clothes to bring in extra money. My parents worked hard and were able to save up and buy a home for our family.

People are sitting at their kitchen table talking about how they're going to pay their bills, and we can speak to the hearts of people on that and show them that we respect them. Ultimately, that's how we have to talk to them. We can't talk down to them.

In Manipur, mostly the top player's family background is very poor. I also come from a poor family, so we have to do more hard work to get money and a better life.

I come from humble beginnings myself.

My mom would get up every day at 4 A.M. and worked two jobs. I always felt I was the poorest kid on the block. I had a chip on my shoulder about being broke.

I grew up in the city of Detroit, where a lot of people didn't have work opportunities, but they were good, hard-working people, including I had a single mom who took care of me and my brother.

My parents were not professionals. They were products of the Depression.

I know what it's like to dig in the couches to find a quarter or two to pull together so you can get a gallon of gas and your grandfather can go to work. That is not something defined by whether you're a Democrat or Republican.

Americans shouldn't have to hold down two or three jobs to make ends meet.

My parents worked hard, sometimes two jobs, to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

There was years when my father didn't even make a hundred grand - or barely made a hundred grand - and sure, we had a maid, but she only came twice a week. What do you think happened the other five days? You think those dishes washed themselves? You think those clothes got themselves in the hamper?

You want to give your children better than what you had and make them feel like they have everything. But I think there is also a lot of value in making them work for things and allowing them to see other places.

I grew up in a household where my mom made $16,000 a year. I know the struggle. I know how to keep those things in perspective, and I do keep it into perspective.